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Topic: Bosch Universal Plus Experiments (Read 47313 times)

Since I plan on doing a number of different experiments with my new Bosch mixer, I thought I would go ahead and start a thread to keep them all together. Hopefully it won't become a jumbled mess.

Got the Bosch Universal plus in today along with a few other goodies. I purchased this unit from www.fykitchen.com . They offer free shipping and seem to have a variety of different packages you can choose from. You can also buy additional accessories. It took a total of 6 days from time of order to arriving at my doorstep via ground shipping. That's pretty fast.

First impression is that this thing is pretty simply to put together and use. The base has suction cups so the unit will stay put on a marble counter top. The bowl clicks securely and easily to the base. The lid comes in 2 parts and clicks to the bowl easily. Everything just seems to fit together intuitively well. That's good for a simpleton like myself. There was very minimal wrestling with the parts.

I also order the small batch adapter ($6) and the dough creeper gizmo ($2) from breadtopia. The small batch adapter is suppose to allow you to mix small batches in the Bosch and the dough creeper gizmo is suppose to prevent the dough from climbing up the shaft into the mixing mechanism. Both, especially the dough creeper gizmo are made from cheap plastic. The machine and all of it's parts seem very sturdy and well built.

Test #1 : Can the Bosch mix up small batches of dough? or what is the smallest batch you can mix up?

For my first test I decide to try and mix up a 400gm dough in the Bosch using the small batch adapter. 400gm will make 2 small pizzas about 11" or so. The bosch did mix the dough well initially with 2 minutes of mixing, but once the dough began to form, it doesn't seem to knead a batch of dough 400gm or less. Even with the small batch adapter in place, the dough just wrapped itself around the middle shaft and the mixing arms spin around just missing the dough. I stopped the mixer frequently and used a spatula to pull the dough out towards the arm but within a few revolutions, the dough returned to the center shaft.

So the next logical step was to double up my recipe and add in another 400gm worth of ingredients. I just dumped the water, salt, and yeast in with the already mixed dough and the bosch easily incorporated everything within a minutes worth of mixing.

After the initial mix, again I was surprise to see the dough get trapped in the middle wrapping itself around the small batch adapter (that slips over the central shaft of the bowl). I decided to remove this small batch adapter and noticed that the dough bagan to be mixed and kneaded. So at this point, I would say that the small batch adapter is useless. I'll have to do a few more test, but the initial result was pretty convincing.

I've been told that the dough creeper gizmo is useless as well. I had it in place but with 800gm of dough in place, the dough never really climbed up the central shaft.

Just from this initial test, I would say that 800gm of dough is the minimal amount I'll be mixing in the Bosch universal plus (BUP). I may try a 600gm batch or even another 400gm batch without the small batch adapter to see what happens, but this machine just wasn't built for small batches.

I would say save your $8 and skip the small batch adapter and creeper gizmo. They don't seem too funcitonal at this point. Here's a picture of what they look like attached to the Bosch. The creeper gizmo is the chinsy plastic thing on top.

UPDATE to test #1: See reply #32 400gm of dough can be mixed evenly in the BUP without the small batch adapter.

For my first batch, I decided to mix up a batch of caputo 00 dough. I decided on caputo 00 b/c it is a relatively low protein flour and requires more kneading to develop gluten. By using this flour, I felt like I could better gauge the effectiveness of the bosch.

As mentioned in Test#1, the BUP will mix a 800gm batch but didn't really seem to do 400gm of dough very well. Perhaps at a later time, I will retry with a 400-600gm batch without the small batch adapter in place.

As far as noise level, the BUP didn't seem very noisy at all. I can't really compare it to other mixers b/c this is my first mixer.

For the dough I used caputo pizzeria 00 flour, cake yeast, kosher salt, and room temp bottle water (63% HR). I dumped all the ingredients in the bowl without dissolving the salt or cake yeast. Turned on the machine to speed the slowest speed 1 and within 2 minutes had an even mix. I let it sit/rest for 15min (per Scott r's regimen - he uses 20m) and then proceeded to mix on speed 1. From hand kneading caputo flour, it seems like most of the sources I've run across recommend about 25-30m of hand kneading. I got to watch a pizzaiolo use a fork mixer and timed the kneading at about 30-35m. Based on this, I decided to initially mix for 15-20m stopping the BUP every 5min and check the consistency of the dough. I wanted to see if and how the dough consistency would change over the next 15-20m. The dough consistency didn't seem to change much and had a rough look to it (pic below) even after 20min of mixing. During this 20 min, I would periodically stop the BUP and pull the dough away from the center shaft and moving it about in the bowl to ensure an even mix.

Since this was the first time using it, I wanted to make sure the dough wasn't just spinning around and around. it didn't appear to be doing this but again, I wanted to make sure. After 20min, the consistency didn't change much, so i opted to let it mix for another 5 min or so. I decided 25m of kneading a caputo dough was plenty.

At this point I pulled out the dough, noting very miniscule amounts of bowl residue. I quickly shaped the dough into a ball and allowed it to rest 15-20m. After this rest period i would perform the window pane test as seen in Scott R's video and per Varasano's website.

After 20min of rest, I was pleased to see that the dough window paned fairly well. When stretch to it's absolute limit, the dough did produce 2 tiny holes, but considering this is a 00 flour, it was more than satisfactory. This dough will be bulk rest for 6 hours tonight at room temps and then be balled in the morning, proof at room temps for another 6 hours or so and then baked.

ImpressionsI think most folks are easily tickled by the windowpane test. I (like most others) was first introduced to this concept via J. Varasano's website. Once Scott R posted his video on the BUP's ability to knead a dough to window pane it had just about everyone drooling for a bosch. I will say that the knead quality is impressive and easy to do. Just turn a knob and watch the the machine do all the work.

I was a bit surprise by the color of this dough though. It turned from a cream color to a light cream color. I was surprise that it didn't turn ultra white as I would have expected even after 25 min of kneading in the bosch. I dunno, it could be b/c it's late and I'm tired and maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me. With 25-30m of hand kneading, I can usually get the dough fairly oxidated/oxygenated to give it that white color. I've never tried a window pane test on my hand kneaded caputo doughs before so I can't say that it would compare at this point. I'll have to do a cmparison test in the near future though to be sure.

If anything the BUP shines in kneading a large batch of 00 flour for 30min without me getting tired. When I hand knead, it is usually a small batch of under 400gm. If I were to hand knead 800gm or more I would like be a bit worn out after a 30m knead. I was expecting the BUP to do a better job in half the time. It seems to do as good of a job or better but able to handle much bigger batches easily than I can by hand. At this point I'm not complaining at all.

Here are a few pics of the dough after 20min of kneading, after a 20min post knead rest, and the windowpane test, balled ready for bulk rise.

Awhhh, thanks Bobino. She is lovely isn't she? I'm glad they don't have child labor laws concerning pizza making equipment. I didn't give her much of a chance to settle in before putting her to work. That Bonnie, she just loves to mix dough! It's her God given talent I tell ya.

Looking forward to the rest of your experiment! I've been considering a mixer for some time now and this unit may be just the ticket. The basic unit is all I need.I just need to convince the wife like I did when I built my wfo, it's not just for pizza only....:lol:....

Carbon some things just go together. WFOs and mixers definitely go together. Tell your wife, "honey, the WFO is lonely. It's needs a friend like a mixer. Somethings were just meant to be together like flowers and sunshine....like you and I".

Ponzu. I started with 15m and then upped it to 25m with an upper limit of 30-35m based on what I've read and seen. Since the texture wasn't really changing much between 15 and 25m, I deduced that another 10m of kneading wouldn't likely change much. I recalled from Varasano's page and Scott r's post that the window pane comes after about a 20m rest period or so.

In all likelyhood, I could have perhaps kneaded this dough for 10m on setting 2 and gotten very similar results. I opted not to knead on a higher speed than 1 to avoid increasing the dough temps and to try and replicate the slow speed of a fork mixer. I believe the BUP on speed 1 is a bit faster than a fork mixer but not significantly faster. What I have been realizing is that lower protein flours like 00 flours can tolerate and require more kneading than a BF or HG flour. I'm not sure that 8m of kneading on the BUP for a 00 flour is sufficient for a same day dough. It may be if I was going to cold rest it for a week or so - I don't know. That may be yet another test down the road. As it is, I don't feel that my 25m knead on speed 1 on the BUP for the caputo 00 flour was extreme. I think it was an appropriate amount of kneading. If I am using BF/HG flour I would definitely adjust my mix times to be more in line with Scot R's. I think his 8 min is a great place to start. I would vary that base on the fermentation time and hydration ratio.

What I did note that was interesting was that the dough temp increase very little throughout the 25m of kneading. It topped of at 78F (with my ambient room temp of 75-76F). I started out with room temp water as well.

Ok so onto the results of test #2. For the above dough I used 0.2% of Cake yeast. This was only my 2nd time using cake yeast. I had planned on the dough fermenting at room temps (75F) for 12 hours. Only 2 hours after bulk resting I noted the dough had risen about 50%. I had a feeling this dough wouldn't last the 12hours. I went ahead and divided & balled after 2 hours based on the rise. Put 2 balls in the fridge and 2 on the counter to proof covered with a moist cloth.

Went to bed and got up this morning at 7am (dough has now been fermenting 7 hours), and the balls looked very poofy. At least doubled in size and then some. (pics below).

So it was definitely time to bake. These could have been baked an hour sooner. I fired up the MBE and decided to try and do some high temp NP pies.

Pic 1 dough 20 min after kneading and ready to bulk risePic 2 dough after 2 hours of bulk risePic 3 divided and balledPic 4 balls after 7 hours of room temp fermentation (0.2% CY). Balls looked textured b/c they were covered with a moist towel and the towel left an impression.

Impressions of the caputo dough mixed in BUP. Well from the looks of it, the color had changed from a semi cream color to more of a white color. This is typical as the dough proofs. I was really impress with handling the dough. For the first time, I really felt like the dough resemble the Pros doughs that you seen on the various Youtube videos.

It was soft, supple, white, and stretched like you would see in the videos. it was very nice to handle. Opened easily and allowed me to practice the slap and stretch technique.

I only recall a very few of my handkneaded BF/HG doughballs (~350 balls) looking and feeling this way. None of my caputo or AP flour blended balls have looked and behave like this before. So it was a pleasant surprise.

Pic 1&2 here is what the dough looked like topped and ready for the MBE. Pic 1 taken inside, Pic 2 taken outside. Note the white color of the stretched skin in pic 2. Pic 3&4 the resulting pies from this bake.

Conclusion: All in all the BUP does a great job at kneading dough to a proper consistency without any hiccups. Handles larger batches without complaints and produces a very nice looking and feeling dough. The BUP does a much better job than I can do by hand especially with lower protein flours that require more kneading.

Have fun with your new toy, I'm sure it beats the crap out of the KA mixer with "C" shaped hook that I have. Did you consider the Electolux DXL when you were shopping. If so, what made you decide to go with the Bosch? Just curious about both for when the time comes for me to upgrade.

Have fun with your new toy, I'm sure it beats the crap out of the KA mixer with "C" shaped hook that I have. Did you consider the Electolux DXL when you were shopping. If so, what made you decide to go with the Bosch? Just curious about both for when the time comes for me to upgrade.

Thanks David. It may be better but I'm sure the KA is a fine mixer. I would love to own a KA if that's all I had. My one shot with one, showed that the KA could mix a smoother dough than I could by hand.

I have no doubt that the Eletrolux DXL is an awesome machine. I know it has just as big a cult following as the Bosch. I ended up with the Bosch b/c Scott r favored it (and I trust his opinion) plus the E. DXL costs more from what I recall.

I'm happy with my decision as the Bosch seems to have a lot of pluses including price point, suction cup feet, reliable track record, ease of use, and great finish dough.

I have yet to decide if INDEED having a mixer makes a better end product over hand kneading. This seems like an easy question to answer but it's not. For now, I'm happy to report it definitely makes for a smoother and better feeling dough. Handles big batches easily & effortlessly.

the crust on the second pie looks straight out of a WFO. Stunning. How was the crumb? Tender?

AZ

Thanks Alexi, I meant to make a detail post about these pies in the MBE thread. I will shortly. IMO the 2nd pie looks better than the first b/c the first was sort of a tester bake in the newly improved MBE using caputo dough and a high temp bake. By the 2nd bake, I loaded it at a more correct temp. The crumb was tender, but it also dried out a bit after sitting. This could be for several reasons: possibly over mix/knead, low hydration ratio for my environment, and/or underbaking in the MBE.

I don't think it was overmixing/kneading b/c of the crumb structure. When I overknead by hand or with the food processor the crumb structure has a very rigid large cell structure look to it. It's very disctinct and I didn't see that in these crumbs.

FWIW, I consider the 2nd pie to be my first NP pie coming out of the MBE. Bake time was 1m45s.

Chau the pies look good. I just wanted to say that Caputo isn't really a low protein flour if I remember correctly its rated at 12.7%-13%. AT and KASL aren't that much higher at 14.5%.

Thanks David, I don't know why I had it in my mind that it was. I think maybe the reason I thought that is b/c it does seem to behave like it's a low protein flour, not absorbing as much water and seemingly require more kneading to develop gluten than a typical BF of that protein %. But then again, I faintly recall a post by Sear mentioning that 00 flours can't/shouldn't be compared to American flours. I think Peter can find an answer for me. Is the protein % comparable to AP flour or lower? Thanks.

cornicione54

Thanks David, I don't know why I had it in my mind that it was. Is it comparable to AP flour or lower? Thanks.

Chau

KA AP is probably the strongest AP flour around (milled from hard winter wheat) and that's ~ 11.7% protein. From my own experience I know it can produce a dough of similar strength to Caputo at a similar hydration but admittedly that's not even close to an accurate or comprehensive analysis of its performance. I'm sure the P/L graphs must exist somewhere for both flours.

Peter thank you for the numbers and the link. I know you just said that caputo can't really be compared to North American flours BUT is there a NA flour with a similar W value? Surely we have a flour that with a comparable % of gluten forming proteins that behaves somewhat like the caputo flour. Could we even loosely state that it behaves more like an AP or a BF?

Am I close in my observation that it behaves like a relatively low protein flour in that it seemingly absorbs little water and takes more kneading to develop gluten?

Thanks

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cornicione54

Peter thank you for the numbers and the link. I know you just said that caputo can't really be compared to North American flours BUT is there a NA flour with a similar W value? Surely we have a flour that with a comparable % of gluten forming proteins that behaves somewhat like the caputo flour. Could we even loosely state that it behaves more like an AP or a BF?

Am I close in my observation that it behaves like a relatively low protein flour in that it seemingly absorbs little water and takes more kneading to develop gluten?

I wonder if anyone's tried those products yet. Would be very interesting to hear if any brave soul or someone with the inside track can offer more insight as I'm not sure I'd want to commit to a 50lb bag of flour of unknown performance.

Before 00 flours became available at the retail level in the U.S., recipe authors, including Pamela Sheldon Johns (in her book Pizza Napoletana! and in several magazine articles), came up with several types of flour blends that were intended to simulate the 00 flours. The blends were usually a combination of our domestic all-purpose flour and cake flour or pastry flour. Peter Reinhart, in his book American Pie suggested using all-purpose flour as a substitute for 00 flour. I don't think I have ever seen bread flour mentioned as a substitute for 00 flour although I have seen blends of bread flour and cake flour or pastry flour as analogs of the 00 flours.

It may be that flour millers in the U.S. have W values for their flours but, if so, they don't publish them. It seems to be a European thing.

I haven't tried it but there may be a way of using the Mixed Mass Percentage Calculator at http://foodsim.toastguard.com/ to come up with a domestic blend of flours with the same protein content of the Caputo 00 flour but the nature and quality of the gluten formation might still be different.

I believe you are correct on the characterization of the way that the Caputo 00 flour behaves and performs. However, many people knead Caputo doughs too long because they do not know that the long knead times specified by the VPN are based on using Italian mixers, which are gentle, not planetary mixers.

Thanks Peter, good to know I wasn't too far off in my approximation of the caputo flour. Good point that you brought up about over kneading of caputo with American mixers. When I got to spend a little time with the pizzaiolo at POMO's in Az, I got to watch 2 batches of caputo dough made. I noted the slower and gentler action of the fork mixer and timed both batches at between 30-35m of mixing. This was in line with times given for hand mixing that I've seen here and there. Realizing that the Bosch's speed one was a bit quicker than the fork mixer, I really didn't want to extend my mixing beyond 25 min. I originally had planned for 15 min but then decided to allow an extra 10min to see if the dough would develop more. It didn't seem to. Perhaps at a future time, I'll do 2 batches of caputo, one at 10 min and one at 25 min to compare the difference.

While there at Pomo's, I was also told never to measure the flour and never to watch the clock while mixing. I was shown the "point of dough" as to when to stop adding flour and when to stop mixing. While I was mixing this 1st batch with the Bosch I also kept the "point of dough" reference in mind being careful not to knead beyond that.